“The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.”
Roland Deschain is the last of the line of eld, gunslingers, who shoot with their hearts and never with their hands. Roland is on a quest to reach The Dark Tower and he pursues the mysterious man in black like a man possessed.
I DNFed this book the first time I tried to read it and I can’t really remember why. I was about halfway through and at some point I just set it down and never picked it back up. So when I received a complete box set of all the Dark Tower books from my boyfriend I was very excited to give it another go.
I found the Gunslinger nothing short of enchanting the second time around. I found myself constantly wanting to pick it back up once I put it down. I just had to know what Roland was going to do next, where he was going to go, what he was going to see. The world that Stephen King has created here is so weird and unlike anything I’ve ever read before and I love that. I love the snippets of culture we get throughout the book, such as the greetings between characters: “Long days and pleasant nights,” “And may you have twice the number.”
Roland is like a little bit of Lord of the Rings’ Aragorn and a lot of The Good the Bad and the Ugly’s Blondie. He’s gruff, handsome, and completely self motivated. He’s such a fun character to follow and I loved getting to see this world through his eyes.
All that being said, I don’t think I’d recommend this to someone unwilling to be open minded or someone who turns away high fantasy stories. There’s a lot to take in here and I think it could be a little overwhelming if you’re one of those people who needs to understand everything immediately.
I for one had a great time with this one and I cannot wait to continue my own journey to the dark tower.
A Professional Bookdragon 